March 1999 - The Search
Our search begins, as do most of our quests for information, on the internet. A Saturday afternoon in March, we head over to 48° North's on-line site, the sailing magazine for the Pacific Northwest. We find ourselves scrolling through the classifieds section, and what feels like hundreds of listings of sailboats for sale. The only things we learned that day were that (1) we'd be spending at least $50,000 to get a 30'-40' boat, and (2) we had a lot to learn.
We spend the next week browsing various sailboat listings on the internet, and getting a bit more familiar with the various builders. We knew that we wanted a seaworthy offshore sailing vessel, but found many opinions as to what this actually was. As with everything else, we also found that we liked the boats that cost the most. We knew we'd have to make some compromises here.
We are fortunate to live near Lake Union in Seattle, with an abundance of boat brokerages. The next Saturday, we headed down the street to Seacraft Yacht Sales where we met Tracy, a broker with years of sailing experience who pleasantly surprised us with her honesty, advice and helpfulness (we later met a few brokers who did not). At last Sara got to board her first sailboats! We immediately liked the 28' Bristol Channel Cutters, with their classic lines and woodworking. It was also apparent that we'd definitely need several more feet. We also liked the Cheoy Lee's cozy teak interior. Of course the Pacific Seacraft 37 was perfect, but at $170k, was a bit out of our financial range.
The following week, we see the following ad in the Micronews, the weekly newsletter at Microsoft where Michael works: "33' Hans Christian, Beautiful Boat, loaded. More info and pictures. Contact: Monte at..." After looking over the great web site for what looked indeed to be a beautiful boat, we contact Monte, the owner, and made plans to see her that weekend.
Saturday afternoon, Shilshole Bay Marina, D dock. Monte meets us at the gate, and we head down the dock to see Jenny P. And she's even more beautiful than her photos on the website. With gorgeous lines, proud strong rigging, her white hull gleams in the sun. We board her, walk down her strong companionway and our breath is practically taken away by her golden teak interior, green marble countertops, and her striking green velour cushions. She is extremely spacious for a mere 33' ship; the layout is ingenious, with a forward pullman berth, and the head and even shower in the bow. Even more amazing was the generous equipment list: radar, GPS, watermaker, refrigeration system. She was practically begging to go offshore that day. Monte must have been reading our minds when he said to us, "Take your time. Hang out for a while. You'll know when you find the right boat..." We dragged ourselves away, sighing, knowing we had months of working before even coming close to getting financed for over $100k.
Over the next month and a half, we look at probably over a hundred boats. We take trips up to the Anacortes boat show, even go up to Vancouver B.C. for the weekend. We look at Westsails, other Hans Christians, steel boats, homemade boats. We talk to a number of brokers, who did give us a lot of (sometimes conflicting) information, and generally decided that we'd prefer to buy a boat from a private party. Every boat we looked at though, didn't come close to feeling like a home, like Jenny P did.
Weeks pass, we grow a bit weary of the search, thinking that we'll never find a boat quite like the Jenny P. Any that have come close have been way out of our price range, and the boats that we could afford needed thousands of dollars for repairs, improvements and additions. So we accepted what we already knew and decided to try to buy Jenny P.
Our hands shook as we filled out the loan paperwork from our credit union, and we anxiously waited over the weekend and into the next week for word from the bank. We tried desperately not to get our hopes up that they would actually finance us for the amount. The next Wednesday morning, Michael gets the unceremonious call at work that yes, the bank would give us 90% of the boat's value. Ack! What do we do now?!? We grinned...should we do it? We had no other choice. We quickly sent Monte an email asking if Jenny P had sold yet. He wrote back right away saying that someone was trying to get financing right now. We said that we'd like to make an offer and give him some earnest money today. He wrote back asking to split the difference. We wrote back and sealed the deal. We cheered out loud. And that was only the beginning of a long and seemingly tedious buying process.
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